As much as I admire and love learning from Butch Harmon… when it comes to swing speed and golf I think he’s wrong (especially when it comes to the majority of golfers in the world - the non-tour players).

You see in his must read book “The Pro” - Lessons about golf and life from my father, Claude Harmon Sr. - Butch Harmon brings up the subject of clubhead speed (swing speed).

In his example he talks about a golfer named Jack Larkin, who was a brilliant junior golfer… winner of the U.S. Boys Junior Championship (he never went on to become the tour player he could have been).

Apparently young Jack  was dead eye dick with his irons… they were lazer straight and accurate.  Trouble for Jack came when someone told him he needed to hit the ball longer if he was to have any success (lack of length didn’t stop Zach Jonson at the Masters, or Corey Pavin back in his hey day).

Here’s how Butch Harmon described Jack Larkins pursuit of increased distance,

“Jack Larkin chased a phantom called clubhead speed, one he was never going to catch, and as a result he lost some of the accuracy that had made him so great”.

To me clubhead speed is NOT a phantom… and it can be caught! 

… if you know how.

Having said that, it sounds like Jack Larkin made a very costly error in how he went about increasing his swing speed. 

When it comes to increasing your swing speed, you can increase it by making changes in one of three key areas:

• Technical Changes (your swing technique)

• Physical Changes (flexibility, strength, power, speed, timing, balance etc.)

• Equipment Changes (shafts, club heads, golf ball, launch monitor fittings etc)

It’s possible young Jack chased the increase in speed through changing his swing technique… which totally screwed him up.

For a guy who was already a good ball striker and very accurate with his irons - swing technique changes were not the place for him to be chasing extra clubhead speed (sadly for Jack, this strategy was a phantom).  Back then, technology and precise club fitting were not what they are today, so equipment changes weren’t going to give him the extra speed he needed.

Had he known how, Jack Larkin could have added swing speed and the desired distance through “Physical Changes”… without having any negative impact on his superb iron play.

Now if you’re no Jack Larkin and your swing sucks, well then, there’s plenty of extra swing speed to be had by identifying and correcting your major swing flaws. For me it’s been releasing my wrists too early and poor weight transfer (I’m glad to say in just a few sessions I’ve improved my ball striking by doing special drills to get the feeling of the correct movement patterns.)

No doubt you’ll have some tendencies in your swing that are less than perfect.  Spend a little time “drilling” the correct movement in place and watch your ball flight improve and feel the increase in speed.

Swing Speed IS more trainable than many believe!

Butch also shared another of his beliefs on swing speed and it’s a similar thought that I heard from many team sports coaches when I was working with professional football players as their Strength & Conditioning Coach.

The belief:

That you’re either born with speed or you’re not and you can only improve it a little.

To an extent this is true.  The old saying that you can’t make a racehorse out of a donkey does have some influence on the maximum swing speed you may achieve… but it doesn’t say anything about how much you can improve. 

“Give me a donkey with some desire and I’ll train it to get past a few racehorses!”. 

Just for laughs here’s my M+ rated version of the donkey/racehorse saying….

“You can’t make strawberry jam out of pig shit”. 

Maybe you couldn’t make strawberry jam… but you sure could make it taste a whole lot sweeter

So, if you feel you’re lacking some natural talent in regard to your swing speed… don’t let that hold you back from significantly adding to what you’ve already got - SWING SPEED IS TRAINABLE (if you want more of it that is).

Swing speed is important, it is fun… but whatever you do in pursuit of it, don’t screw yourself up like poor Jack Larkin did.

Cheers

Sean Cassidy “Real Men Swing Fast”

(”The Pro” by Butch Harmon is definitley a book to get into - I’ve read it 3 times so far)

ps - as for Butch Harmon’s book, “The Pro”… I found it one of the most interesting, instructional and moving books based around golf that I’ve ever read. 

Heck, the part about the cashmere socks in the cupboard brought a tear to my eye (yeah, I’m a self confessed emotional softy - I think it’s the yin side for my angry yang side). 

And Hogan’s strategy for playing some par 4’s and 5’s is one not to forget… especially in this age of “Bomb & Gouge”.

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